Must-read China news by Danwei

From BusinessWeek:

China’s benchmark stock index dropped for a seventh day, the longest losing streak in 18 months, as a bigger-than-expected slowdown in the country’s manufacturing last month added to evidence the economy is cooling.

Jiangxi Copper Co. and Shenhua Energy Co. paced losses by commodity producers as metal and oil prices declined. Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd., the nation’s biggest maker of the lightweight metal, slid 2.8 percent after cutting the price of alumina. Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. fell among health-care companies on concern valuations are excessive

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:25 AM | Permalink

Fu Qiang sued a construction company for setting off explosions that killed 270,000 of his pig frogs. With the case undecided, local authorities warned a Chongqing court not to "go its own way."

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 4:34 PM | Permalink

"Central Party School removes its veil of mystery" is the headline at the China Daily. Behind the veil is a school where party officials study hard, reflect, take "strolls," and absolutely do not live it up by eating and drinking while their secretaries do their homework for them.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:30 PM | Permalink

GoChengdoo reports on new PSB rules that require next-generation ID cards for web cafe access, which effectively bars use by bars foreigners:

Li Tingqi has been studying in Chengdu for four years. Two days ago, Li Tingqi had made plans with Korean friends to go to the Internet cafe for an online gaming session. As usual, at the big Internet cafe near Sichuan University, they pulled out their 'net-cafe cards to sign in. But the employee at the counter told them that according to new Public Security Bureau regulations, the Internet bar has implemented a system for swiping the new-generation ID cards, and only those cards. Any other form of ID would not be accepted.

"We're all overseas students from South Korea, how can we have Chinese IDs?" Li Tingqi and his friends could not understand. He took out his passport and his student ID in order to verify his identity, but the employee maintained that he would not be able to surf the 'net without a second-generation ID card.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:27 PM | Permalink

The Wall Street Journal blog writes about top scorers in the gaokao.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:53 AM | Permalink

From the Associated Press:

Hope of finding survivors of a landslide that trapped at least 107 people was diminishing Tuesday as rescuers used heavy machinery including bulldozers to move debris in rain-hit southwestern China.

Villagers huddled in tents set up at the site as rescuers searched for their family members. The first body was pulled out late Tuesday, the official Xinhua News Agency said, only identifying it as that of a child.

Posted by Alice Xin Liu at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Guy Dinmore in The Financial Times:

Italian police targeting Chinese criminal gangs launched dawn raids across the country on Monday and said they had broken up multibillion-euro money-laundering operations while seizing illegal factories and other assets.

Operation Great China, led by the Guardia di Finanza tax police in Florence and involving some 1,000 officers, was the biggest of its kind to date. Seventeen Chinese and seven Italians were arrested while police seized more than 150 companies and properties, and 166 luxury cars from across Italy.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 4:51 PM | Permalink

The Official Google Blog offers an update on their situation in the China market:

We currently automatically redirect everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, our Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google. However, it’s clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable—and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it’s up for renewal on June 30). Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China.
...
Over the next few days we’ll end the redirect entirely, taking all our Chinese users to our new landing page—and today we re-submitted our ICP license renewal application based on this approach.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 2:46 PM | Permalink

A translation of an opinion piece written by Shi Zhe for the Southern Weekly:

When educating the public, it should be said that anti-corruption efforts are not only a matter for government. It is also important for citizens to be involved. However, when regulations are drawn up and the wheels are put in motion, things must be done in a purely professional manner, which is the government’s responsibility. Regular citizens should not so easily become “martyrs” and employees at every level across the nation should not be coerced by power to become accessories to “martyrs”.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 3:24 PM | Permalink

Now that Shi Xiaowei's simplified Chinese translation of 1Q84 has been released for the mainland market, two other translators of Haruki Murakami discuss how they approach the author's work.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:56 PM | Permalink

Why is the price of private healthcare in China rising at 3,000% a year? How long will the private clinics be able to get away with it?

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:45 PM | Permalink

At Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter continues his tale of fishing outside of Shanghai:

It’s the kind of anticipation that leads experienced fishermen to sit on a boat in the heat of the mid-day sun, lines in the water, knowing that – under such conditions – they’re about as likely to catch a blue whale as a walleye or a bass. And it’s just that kind of anticipation which – along with growing wealth, leisure time, automobile ownership, and restlessness – drives the quickening growth of recreational fishing in China.

Travel China’s cities and I guarantee that – if you come across an urban creek, river, or canal – you’ll eventually find somebody with a line in it, no matter how polluted, fishing for pleasure.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:33 PM | Permalink

Joyce Hor-Chung Lau writes for the International Herald Tribune about Wu Guanzhong, a modern Chinese painter who died last week at the age of 90:

The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong said in an obituary that Mr. Wu was “one of the most important figures of 20th-century Chinese art.” In his last years, he gave generously to public museums.

He donated dozens of paintings to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, adding to a collection of previous gifts. In a last gesture Friday, he added five more ink works, the state news agency Xinhua reported. The museum, which is now holding a solo show for Mr. Wu, called his works “a major contribution to the integration of Chinese and Western art.”

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:13 PM | Permalink

A Modern Lei Feng writes about a peculiar attempt to cool down an inter city rivalry:

Unfortunately this season, Tianjin wasn’t willing to take any of these measures. Just days before the match at Tianjin, representatives of the biggest group of Guoan fans were called to meet with the club and police and were told they wouldn’t be allowed to travel to Tianjin. Their deposits on the buses they rented and tickets they bought were returned and other bus companies were contacted and told not to allow buses to be chartered to Tanggu for the match.

The question is why? Was this being overly safe? Too afraid of trouble? Or was Tianjin too lazy to make a plan or take up the expense of more police? A few Beijing fans ignored the warning and made the trip anyway, only to be removed from the stadium before kickoff “for their own safety”.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 12:03 PM | Permalink

At the Granite Studio, Zhang Yajun writes about French attitudes toward Asians and the overseas Chinese protests in Paris:

Possessed of a mentality that seeks to avoid trouble whenever possible, Chinese communities usually prefer to keep problems to themselves rather than seek help from police. Being perceived as physically weak also makes Chinese seem easy targets for attacks and robbery. But after keeping quiet for many decades, the Chinese community in Paris finally decided to publicly demand greater security. This demonstration not only draws attention to the problem of violence and crime against Chinese in France, but signals an important step towards political action by the ethnic Chinese community.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 11:40 AM | Permalink